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The Pleasures and Pains of Coffee (1830)

blissbat.net Essays & writing Essays & articles Culture & media Candidate

Resurfaced independently across 6 calendar years, with breakout response in 2 of them.

submissions
6
submitters
6
observed span
2011–2020
peak thread · 75 comments
218 pts
latest 20+ return · 2020-03-07
104 pts

Submission timeline

2007–2026

One slot for every year since HN launched. Height is that year's peak points; orange marks a 100+ point or 50+ comment breakout. Select a bar to open its strongest thread.

First comments on top threads

HN comment order

Balzac was a wild guy, and prolific. Here's how he worked: Balzac drove himself relentlessly as a writer, motivated by enormous literary ambition as well as a never-ending string of creditors and endless cups of coffee; as Herbert J. Hunt has written, he engaged in “orgies of work punctuated by orgies of relaxation and pleasure.” When Balzac was working, his working schedule was brutal: He ate a light dinner at 6:00 P.M., then went to bed. At 1:00 A.M. he…

nappy·218-point thread·

Great writing of Mr Balzac about coffee. According to research he came out as a man of extremes - "Overweight, workaholic, and a caffeine abuser, Honoré de Balzac lived a life of excess. He prematurely died at the age of 51 owing to gangrene associated with congestive heart failure." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27638234

Amusing article :) -- but in all seriousness I have been subject to many of the effects of caffeine overdose. Some days I might drink over 800 mg (the rough equivalent of 8 cups of coffee), via energy drinks, soda, and/or espresso. My stomach suffered a lot from the acidity, including acid reflux and damage to my stomach lining (mostly from soda - also, inconclusively, I suspect my appendicitis may have been related to this abuse). I would undergo "panic…

Previous discussions, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13647098 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2880196

The first top-level comment from each of the four biggest threads, in HN’s own order. Excerpts are shortened; open a comment for full context.

Breakout years
2

100+ points or 50+ comments

Total points
390

reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking

Total comments
119

reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking

Every submission

DateTitle as submittedByPointsComments
2011-08-13“The Pleasures and Pains of Coffee”tryitnow6321
2015-11-05“The Pleasures and Pains of Coffee” by Honore de Balzaccoloneltcb11
2016-10-17Honore de Balzac: The pleasures and pains of coffeekawera10
2017-02-14The Pleasures and Pains of Coffee (1830)First breakout · Best threadbenbreen21875
2019-12-23The Pleasures and Pains of Coffee – BalzacFeuilles_Mortes31
2020-03-07The Pleasures and Pains of Coffee (1830)Latest 20+ point returnoccamschainsaw10421